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Envision finding yourself with a night off. You are energized, eager for new things, and looking to break from your regular habits of post-work slumping. The world is your oyster! Could you prefer a) attending a concert or b) being with a partner? The outcome, as is often seen with these sorts of queries, is plainly: “It depends.” Thinking adults might logically inquire: what kind of the show? Who is the other person? Is it likely to be satisfying?

Few would select a heavy metal lineup if the alternative was a dream date with Jonathan Bailey. However tweak either end of the scenario, and it becomes less clearcut. For the 40,000 people presented with this choice from a gig organization, no further clarification was offered – and the result came out unambiguously and overwhelmingly in favour of concerts.

Survey Results Indicate Unexpected Preferences

An international study, questioning 40,000 people aged between 18 and 54 across 15 markets, found that concerts currently stand as the number one form of entertainment, ranking above athletic events, films and – indeed – sexual intercourse. When limited to a single form of enjoyment permanently, nearly four in ten selected live music, compared to going to the cinema (17%) and sports events (14%). The group was significantly more as inclined to choose seeing their favourite artist live (70%) rather than intimacy (30%).

You arrive hopeful of being pleasantly surprised – and quite often you might find with a stranger's hair in your mouth

Factors and Reflections

Naturally it's expected that a PR survey conducted for a live event company would result so overwhelmingly supporting concerts – and, with the speculative spirit of a hypothetical choice, if your top performer is, say a legendary singer, it's understandable why attending his concert might win out over a common or garden encounter. Yet this two-option scenario between gigs or intimacy, clearly absurd as it is, is interesting to consider considering the strange juncture we experience with each.

The Transformation of Concert Culture

Over the past few years, concert attendance has grown beyond a communal experience but a intense competition. Live organizations rightly note that stadium attendance has “increased threefold annually”, and music festivals get booked up more rapidly than previously. Simply getting admissions now needs detailed strategy, rapid-fire response times and significant funds (or a generous credit card limit). Although you’re successful, it isn't sufficient to merely attend and experience the event. Nowadays exists an assumption, especially for concertgoers, that you could increase your enjoyment value by going multiple times (even travelling internationally), learning the set list beforehand and memorizing the cues to perform and audience interactions created by past attendees.

Numerous concertgoers report feeling affected by their participation at major tours: appearing as a orchestrated show of huge audiences, where certain attendees turned up unaware of the routine. That 18-month tour, generating billions, demonstrated of the lengths to which fans will travel to feel part of a historic occasion and see their favourite artist play, although the actual music grows somewhat secondary to the production.

The State of Contemporary Sexuality

Sex, conversely – a relatively cheap and available enjoyment – is in difficult times. According to modern research, about a quarter of individuals were intimate in an average week, while just under a third were abstaining. Elsewhere, current statistics indicated that over a quarter of individuals reported not having sexual activity even once in the previous year, increasing from fewer people in the past. In both territories, the shift has been attributed to reduced intimacy among younger people. Contrast this with the sector expanding rapidly for large concerts and the fierce battle for passes. Certainly it's more complicated as a straightforward choice between both alternatives – “could you choose experience a popular event repeatedly, or stay celibate?” – but it's possibly an signal of which is perceived as the more consistent pleasure.

Surprising Parallels

Relationships and gigs are more similar than one may assume. Each symbolizes the commencement of a connection, a real-world test of expectations or possibility that may have developed solely in your imagination. You come with some idea of what might happen, but expecting to be happily shocked – and how it ends up enjoyable or disappointing rests largely on if your enthusiasm and expectations match theirs. Regularly you might find with another person's locks in your mouth, and afterwards be lingering for a break and personal space alone. Likewise with either, drugs and alcohol can sometimes improve or detract from the situation (but absolutely assist the most dire situations more bearable).

Seeking Harmony

The wonder to both gigs and sex depends on discovering that elusive sweet spot between the known and the new, similarity and difference, challenge and comfort. Naturally it's uncommon – but it’s the memory of when they did, the knowledge that success is achievable, that inspires us to try again: to {